Breast augmentation is one of the most common cosmetic surgical procedures performed in the United States and Europe. In 2006, almost 400,000 women in the United States chose breast implantation surgery to meet their personal goals. Breast augmentation is, for example, often chosen for enhancing figure proportions, for remedying breast droop or sag due to age, nursing, or weight loss, or for symmetry correction during breast reconstruction after cancer surgery. Studies have also shown that breast augmentation can lead to an improved quality of life. Whatever the reason chosen for breast augmentation, the choice of the appropriate breast implant is the first crucial step in the process of realizing the patient's goals.
Each woman who elects breast augmentation surgery not only has her own personal expectations, but also her own unique set of physical characteristics. Certainly the patient and the doctor must consider the patient's desired post-operative breast size and profile; however, the physical characteristics of the patient's breast, including tissue and skin characteristics, also must be carefully considered. In particular, the failure to clinically select a breast implant of the appropriate volume and shape can lead to disappointing aesthetic results, potentially uncorrectable deformities, or even the need for re-operation. Re-operation, which generally occurs with a frequency of ten to twenty percent (10-20%) after three (3) years, not only unnecessarily exposes the patient to additional surgery, but is also costly in terms of both the additional surgical procedure itself and the replacement implants.
Given the wide range of patient goals and differing physical characteristics, a relatively large range of breast implants have been developed and marketed. (Counting types, sizes, shapes, and so on, over two hundred [200] different implants are available in the United States alone.) While this wide range of choices advantageously allows patients and doctors the flexibility to choose the appropriate implant, the array of choices can also make the decision process more complicated, for both patient and doctor.
In other words, patients and their doctors need a better way of selecting the best possible breast implant from the relative large number of choices available in the marketplace. Any new breast implant selection techniques must not only address the aesthetic goals of the patient, but also the constraints imposed by the patient's physical characteristics. Such techniques should be accurate and minimize the risk of disappointing results and re-operation, yet still simply the selection process.